


gazebos, affection, and other bullshit eddie kaspbrak needs to get out of his system

by tvfordessert



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, cute and innocent, i gave richie a dog for no reason, post-defeating pennywise, pre-blood pact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-01 03:38:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12147813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvfordessert/pseuds/tvfordessert
Summary: shout-out to my friend ben who nudged me in the theater and asked: "is it weird to ship those two?" i blame him entirely for this.





	gazebos, affection, and other bullshit eddie kaspbrak needs to get out of his system

_Goddamn rain_. Richie Tozier thought as he stared out his window.

The instant he closed the door on the most insane day of his life, the fucking sky opened up.

Bill's brother died the last time it stormed like this. But, thankfully, that was all over now.

Richie smirked. Derry could not fathom the debt it owed The Loser's Club as the rain washed away any last traces of Pennywise.

It had to be a fucking clown.

Considering that he'd been dealt an above-average dose of near death experiences in the past twenty-four hours, Richie thought it high time he slept off his traumatic bonding experience with The Loser's Club. Unfortunately, the rain was inhibiting this activity. More accurately, his dog found the rain's incessant rhythmic pattering unbearable and voiced this opinion through a series of high pitched whines dooming the two most neglected creatures in the Tozier household to a sleepless reality.

"Get over yourself, will ya?" Richie hurled in the dog's direction from his own restless position on the couch. "I'm the one who had to kill a circus creep with a head that spun around like a fucking dreidel at Stan's Hanukkah party today!"

If Richie were being honest with himself and, to a lesser extent, his dog, his capacity for sound sleep had been irreparably ruptured by his summer's itinerary, meaning this struggle would exist regardless of forecast. While his body was particularly exhausted, his mind was sprinting off in every conceivable direction.

Richie sat up in defeat, which was when he noticed a diminutive figure marching toward his house. He put on his glasses and leered his neck to get a better vantage point of the incoming guest. From this position he could usually scope out whether the door was worth answering - most times it wasn't. Once Richie picked up on the individual's scrupulous posture as it moved forward, he was able to instantly categorize this as behavior unique to his high-strung friend Eddie Kaspbrak. Richie took a strange pride in his ability to recognize a fellow Loser on gait alone; each in his humble inner-circle possessed their own weird idiosyncrasies and Eddie was no exception.

His pal's "updated look" this summer included a pathetically graffitied cast and a newfound plucky attitude. The latter conveniently kicked in directly before their collective clown crusade. Richie had to hand it to the nerd, he pulled some unexpectedly badass shit in that sewer - he even endured grey-water.

Richie noticed that this attitude was carrying over to a certain degree by the way Eddie approached the house. Last time Richie Tozier checked he hadn't abruptly transformed into some fear demon or Munchausen-mother since their last interaction, so he was not sure why his friend's face was bunched-up in a look of cartoonish annoyance as he rang the bell.

Richie arrived at his porch to find Eddie damp from the rain, bouncing anxiously on his heels, and looking like a genuine wide-eyed lunatic.

"Hey." Eddie blurted the second the door opened.

"Whoa, what happened to you?" Richie remarked upon taking in his friend's appearance.

"What happened to me? What happened to me?" The cast-clad boy repeated back exasperated, really punctuating on his whole "type-A" vibe. "You mean besides the grey-water sewer monster that we just -"

Richie had arrived at the perfect facetious remark to cut off his friend's impending rant, when Eddie seemed to putter out on his own accord, letting out a deep sigh.

"Forget it, that's not why I'm here." The young man on the porch stated entirely to himself.

"Yes, please feel free to share with the class. Why _are_ you here?" Richie punctuated each word with increased sarcasm, despite the fact that he actually kind of welcomed the fellow Loser's presence.

"This might sound stupid, but -"

"Correction. It definitely will." Richie said in a successful attempt to make Eddie's face re-bunch. "Continue."

"Today was one of the best days of my summer."

"What are you talking about?!? We all almost died!" Richie practically shouted.

"Yes, okay." Eddie shifted his body to coincide with that reasonable counterpoint. "But today I did shit I didn't think I was capable of, you know? Not just with It but with my mom and-"

It appeared Eddie had wisely built some pauses into this lightly-rehearsed speech, anticipating his loud-mouth friend would make sporadic interjections. Richie decided to confound this expectation and not take the bait which delightfully flustered Eddie who had clearly lost track of his thought.

"And?" Richie pushed up his glasses.

"What if this is it?" Eddie was clearly embarrassed by whatever point he was trying to make because his eyes fell from Richie to his toes. "What if I've used up all my courage and tomorrow things just go back to how they were before?"

"Relax Cinderella, there are no more demon clowns in our future, so I can just go back to carrying the weight for the rest of you."

"It's not just It, there are other things..." He trailed, keeping his eyes aloof.

"Like what?"

"Like crushes." The hypochondriac stated definitively, but instantaneously felt dumb about it and backtracked. "...feelings."

"Oh!" Richie perked up; he knew he'd be called upon for this task one day. "You need help getting laid?"

Before Richie could spout off some bullshit that would be transparently regurgitated from movies he'd seen, Eddie took his uncast arm and grabbed at the collar of Trashmouth's shirt. The boy pulled his stunned friend towards him on the porch and planted a determined kiss on him.

Richie's only true weapon, his mouth, was rendered completely useless by this action. Not a single part of his brain or body knew how to react, so he just stood there as if caught in a game of freeze-tag.

Although this was Eddie's "brave" idea, he wasn't doing much better. His arms both maintained the stillness and stiffness of a statue with his cast-clad appendage motionless at his side and his other one hanging off Richie's shirt. Eddie floundered in his execution and just continued to press his tightly-pursed lips into his un-moving friend.

This entire feat could not have lasted more than twenty seconds, but it felt like a lifetime to both parties.

Richie regained reflexes just when Eddie decided his bold action had timed out. As Eddie retreated, he found his friend's fingertips settling ever-so-slightly into the exposed fingers on his cast-covered arm. Richie realized that his friend's display of affection was over a moment too late. He tried to cover up for his hand's activity, and the fact that his body had followed Eddie's lips away leaving him tilted forward, but the vulnerability was written all over his face.

"You're an idiot, Richie." Eddie then concluded in an affectionate manner before disappearing back into the rainy evening.

The boy was just barely still within ear-shot by the time Richie had gathered himself enough to yell: "What the fuck was that, Kaspbrak?"

Eddie didn't turn around, but Richie could tell by his strut that he was wearing a shit-eating grin.

 _Seriously, what was that?_ Richie pondered himself upon noticing that he was smiling too.


End file.
